30May16

"The CIA continues trafficking drugs from Afghanistan"

Years ago, former parliamentary, writer and activist for human rights Malalaï
Joya pointed out that the CIA continues trafficking drugs from Afghanistan. In
an interview by e-mail (censored) to the Brazilian newspaper O Tempo, later
sent to me in full also by e-mail, she stated that, "the Afghan narcotics
economy is a designed project of the CIA, supported by US foreign policy.
There are reports in Afghanistan that even US army is engaged in the drugs
trafficking: drug mafia is in the hold of power and supported by the West."
What can you say about it?

We strongly support this statement of Malalai Joya which is based on facts.

The CIA has a long history of being involved in global drug trade in all parts of
the world under the control of the US or where it has considerable influence.
While a few cases have been investigated and exposed by journalists, the
issue continues to remain in the shadows.

The CIA's history began in the 1980s. Drugs were seen as the quickest and
easiest way to earn money to fund CIA proxies and paramilitary forces that
served them, in different countries. Gary Webb, the brave journalist who
exposed the Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking scandal and was eventually
driven to suicide by an extensive smear campaign by the mainstream media,
described the process like this:

"We (CIA) need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is
sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don't want to know anything
about it."

This tactic worked very successfully in Afghanistan during the Cold War when
the Mujahideen forces serving the US were funded through drugs.

Before the US invasion in 2001, the poppy fields were eradicated by the
Taliban. Right after the US invasion, drug production began increasing
drastically, and today Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium, and on
the verge of becoming a narco-state. There are reports of US forces admitting
that drugs are flown out of Afghanistan in US planes.

Ahmad Wali Karzai (brother of US puppet Hamid Karzai), the now dead
governor of Kandahar province, was at one time the biggest drug dealer of not
just Afghanistan, but the region. The whole time, he was on the payroll of the
CIA.

There have even been claims from US officers directly involved in drug
operations in Afghanistan about the CIA's involvement. A DEA agent, Edwrad
Follis, stated that the CIA "turned a blind eye" to the drug trade in Afghanistan.
Most recently, John Abbotsford an ex-CIA analyst and war veteran who fought
in Afghanistan confessed that CIA had a role in drug smuggling operations.

Even if we exclude these claims and reports, it is hard to believe that a
superpower that boasts the most modern technology in surveillance and
intelligence-gathering cannot find opium fields and track supply routes within a
country it occupies. The fact that 8 billion dollars have been spent in drug
eradication efforts for the past decade but opium production has only soared,
is itself an indication that the drug business serves some US interest in
Afghanistan, or it would have been finished a long time ago.

Other players in this so-called 'counter-narcotics' efforts are private US
contractors who earn millions of dollars through counter-narcotic contracts.
One of the biggest beneficiaries is the notorious military company, Blackwater
(now known as Academi) which according to RT earned 569 million dollars
from these contracts. Private contractor companies have a huge share of the
profits of the war in Afghanistan, and this failed drug war results in huge profits
for them.

In fact, one of the reason for invasion of Afghanistan by the US was to hold its
grip on the narcotics business which is the 3rd important trade commodity in
terms of income after weapon and oil business.

How sincere is the US in liberating Afghanistan? Do you think the US wish an instable
Afghanistan?

US/NATO claims for "liberating" Afghanistan are only cheap slogans and in
fact they are invaders and destroyers of "liberation". The US has no interest in
Afghanistan's prosperity. In fact, instability, insecurity, poverty, illiteracy and
other deeply-entrenched social and economic problems help the US and its
puppet government to remain in power without any opposition from the people.

In fact, the US government has a bloody hand in the events of the past 4
decades of Afghanistan. They supported and armed blood-thirsty elements in
our country and turned Afghanistan to its current disastrous condition. If the
US had wanted stability and prosperity, it would have given the billions of
dollars of aid to be invested in basic infrastructure, not to fill the pockets of
warlords and corrupt NGOs that thrived under US occupation. This gold rush
has led Afghanistan to become the most corrupt country in the world, which
means not even cents of this aid reaches our people.

The US/NATO try to turn not only Afghanistan but the whole Asia to an
instable region in the world. While world economy turns toward Asia with big
powers like Russia, China, India etc., the US rely on terrorism as a weapon to
block the progress of especially Russia and China and make problems for
these countries. Afghanistan has become a center of this power game
between the big powers once again. (...)

If I have well understood, you mean that Afghanistan is worse now than before the US-led
invasion.

Yes, absolutely. Apart from what I mentioned above, if we only consider the
deterioration of the security situation, which is vital for people, more than food
and water, all over Afghanistan, we can understand how the situation is worse
than before.

Opium is another deadly virus which infects our new generation and is
dangerous than Taliban and al-Qaeda. The number of civilians killed in suicide
attacks by Taliban, the night raids and airstrikes of US forces, and the crimes
of the militias of local warlords in different parts of Afghanistan, increases with
every passing year.

The economy of the country is in ruins, controlled by mafia who draw support
from powerful Afghan government officials. The US and NATO invaded
Afghanistan with tall claims of "reconstruction of Afghanistan", but we do not
see any growth in any fundamental sector of Afghanistan.

Only the mafia and NGOs have grown in numbers and size. Afghans are the
second largest group of migrants in the world, as the youth take up dangerous
journeys to escape the misery at home. Many youngsters are drug addicts
today.

In the more isolated areas, poverty and unemployment has driven young
people to join the Taliban and ISIS as they provide basic necessities and
sometimes even gives them salaries. Afghan women are as suppressed and
under attack as they were under the medieval rule of the Taliban.

Neighboring governments like Iran and Pakistan never has such big and
bloody hands in Afghanistan affairs like today.

This is only a brief summary of the disastrous situation of the country but is
enough to show the devastation the US has brought upon our country and
people.

As you've said, both history and current events show that occupation is never successful.
What alternatives does RAWA defend to definitely change Afghanistan? Do you see foreign
help as productive to really liberate the Afghan people from such too violent characters and
groups? If so, who and how could provide a positive help to Afghanistan?

We have always said that the independence of a country is the first condition
for democracy, freedom, and justice in a country. There are few, to no
examples in history where foreign intervention has liberated or helped a
nation, and the past 14 years of the US occupation of Afghanistan is proof of
that.

The US not only did not liberate Afghanistan, but imposed on our people their
biggest enemies, the fundamentalist criminals. The US is the creator and
nurturer of these violent groups. It is a conscious policy of the US government
to partner with Islamic fundamentalists wherever it steps in. We saw this in
Libya and Syria as well. The US claims to be fighting terror, but the biggest
terrorists, the Northern Alliance criminals, were brought to power by the US
itself.

This did not come as a surprise though. Right at the beginning of the US
invasion of Afghanistan, RAWA declared that the purpose of this aggression is
to serve the imperialist aims of the US, and in this ordeal they will partner with
the worst enemies of our country. What is of least importance to the US is the
wellbeing of Afghanistan and its people. The current situation of our country is
proof of that.

The key to freedom and democracy is in a united, organized struggle of our
people. An arduous struggle it may be, but there is no other way out of this
quagmire either. Only the people of a country can decide their fate and build a
system that serves them.

The solidarity of the freedom and peace loving people of the world is very
important in strengthening our people's struggle as well. This will be a long
and hard process, but Afghans have no other alternative but to unite and fight
for freedom, democracy, justice and liberation.

Does RAWA defend a laic or an Islamic Afghanistan, based on the sharia law?

Secularism has been RAWA's slogan since it was found. We believe that
democracy is meaningless without secularism. Religion has historically been
misused as means to maintain the power of those that ruled, and in a society
where the people are deeply religious, the combination of state and religion is
a particularly dangerous one.

Today in Afghanistan, the biggest tool the current fundamentalists in power
use to defend their acts and protect themselves, is Islam. All the
fundamentalist criminals in power whitewash their crimes using Islam. It has
been used to quench the people's anger and their desire to rise up and
struggle for their rights.

The Taliban have been able to transform innocent young men to deadly
suicide bombers by brainwashing them with religious ideas. Unfortunately this
misuse of religion has served them quite well.

This is why secularism is vital for our country today, to uproot fundamentalism
and build a society free of this deadly virus. Only then can Afghanistan step
towards progress and prosperity.

Is misogyny a general sense in Afghanistan, or reduced to the warlords and Taliban?

There is no doubt that Afghanistan is plagued by backwardness, culturally and
economically. For centuries, reactionary monarchs injected and used
reactionary ideas to maintain their power. However, the past three decades
when Islamic fundamentalists dominated Afghanistan, this backwardness has
become more common and extreme than ever before.

One of the aspects of Islam widely propagated by Islamic hardliners is the
degradation and oppression of women who are seen more like animals than
humans. Women are only to be seen as servants who work at home, give birth
to children, and satisfy the sexual needs of men.

Family violence is one of the most wearing and most painful problems for
women in Afghanistan and most other Muslim countries and it is mostly
supported by the hard-liners. This problem partly fed on the Islamic teachings
that are given to the men (and women) from their childhood. There are
Quranic verses in this respect that:

"Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will"
(2:223)

"Men are in charge of women... As for those form whom ye fear rebellion,
admonish them and banish them to beds apart." (4:34)

There are a lot of such verses in the Quran.

Men justify their mastery and inhuman treatment of women based on these
verses. And of course a number of sayings by Prophet Muhammad or other
religious sources and large amount of poems and stories incidentally by
popular poets reinforce these verses and all together they affect men so badly
that if they treat a women with slight humanity and kindness, they feel as if
they are committing the biggest sin of their lives! In the mentioned books and
sources there are some words of compassion and kindness toward women but
they have failed to shield women from the flood of those against them.

In those Muslim countries where secularist principles have found some space
within the society the depth of these violence is not as bad as those infested
with fundamentalism.

How do you evaluate the mainstream media coverage of Afghanistan? How does RAWA
evaluate the international human rights organizations' and the so-called international
community position and acts concerning to the Afghan Cause?

It is no more a secret that mainstream media is used as a weapon in the
modern wars. The mainstream media in the world, and especially the US, has
served the imperialist purposes inside their countries better than any other
tool.

The people of these countries do not have the true picture from the US wars to
make proper, informed decisions on them. Afghanistan barely gets any
coverage and if it does, it is systematically in line with a general policy of the
US.

The crimes of the US forces such as killings and torture and night raids will
never be shown, as will the insecurity and instability of our country and the
devastating situation of women and people not get any attention. What will be
shown is the horrors of the Taliban's crimes to justify the US's war, or isolated
"success stories" to paint a rosy picture of the situation of Afghanistan.

How often are people encouraged to discuss the US's involvement in wars
abroad by giving them true facts? The same goes for other countries where
the crimes of dictators such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and
Bashar Assad are continuously streamed, but the absolute devastation of Iraq
and Libya by the US forces and their puppet governments, and the
unconditional support of the US for ISIS elements (rebranded under names
such as Al Nusra and Al Qaeda) in Syria is never shown. In fact, they find
ways to whitewash and cover such actions of the US.

While some international human rights organizations have played an important
part in Afghanistan's four decades of war by documenting crimes, publishing
reports and calling the world's attention to these matters, the same cannot be
said for the entire international community.

The international community and their partners in Afghanistan have been only
involved in superficial issues that have no relevance for the Afghan people
such as short-term projects and establishing useless NGOs. They have not
thrown light on any fundamental issues of Afghanistan such as the US
occupation, presence of fundamentalists in power, and their crimes. They in
fact give a helping hand to the mainstream media of the world to portray the
situation in Afghanistan as "better" than it was 15 years ago.

But of course alternative media like Democracy Now! etc. reflect realities, but
their reporting is buried under the tones of propaganda pieces aired by big
media outlets like CNN, BBC, AP,Fox News etc. who have large coverage and
resources to make fool of people.

Who are the greatest Afghans' enemies?

Afghans are crushed between four enemies today: the US and NATO forces,
the Northern Alliance criminals and warlords in the government, the Taliban,
and an emerging ISIS.

The US has mothered all of these criminal fundamentalist elements and still
has them on a leash for its purposes in the region. This means it is The
Northern Alliance criminals enjoy the bulk of Western support, both financial
and political which makes them more dangerous than other bands. The
viciousness of the Taliban and ISIS is well-known to the world and they get
military and financial support through the US, Pakistan and even Iran.

All these enemies are mighty powerful and control different parts of the
country. In the battles between these forces, in the gruesome airstrikes,
suicide and rocket attacks carried out by them, it is only our people who suffer.

What are RAWA prospects to Afghanistan, before the current reality? What would you like to
say to the world and to the West, especially to Americans and their government?

If the political situation of Afghanistan is unchanged, the current situation is
only going to become bleaker. The people of Afghanistan will continue to
suffer from insecurity, poverty, corruption, unemployment, and other
devastating issues. Our people will continue to be victim of the crimes of the
US forces, Taliban, and Jehadi warlords. There is only one way the current
situation can change and that is for the people themselves to struggle for their
rights and a better country, against their prime enemies (US, Taliban, Jehadi
warlords).

We have nothing to say to the Western governments who have the blood of
our innocent people on their hands. Our message for the peace-loving people
of these countries is that they have to see the reality of Afghanistan and all the
other countries the US has invaded. What they see as rare news of the
catastrophic situation in these countries, is the everyday reality for the people.

They need to pressurize their governments to change this invasions and
occupation policy, and stand in solidarity with the people who are the victims of
these wars. This international solidarity will strengthen the fight for freedom
and democracy in these countries.

They should know that the tax they pay is used by their governments to make
Afghanistan and other war-torn countries as hell which will directly impact their
lives and make Western countries unsafe, like what we witness today in
European cities.

This is the second part of the interview granted by Friba, RAWA's representative. Interview by Edu
Montesanti, Pravda.Ru Portuguese version

[Source: Pravda, Moscow, 30May16]

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